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Last Call

By Randall Mann Randall Mann

A giant bird-

of-paradise

has climbed the bar:

in this paradise

there are no flowers,

no flowers at all.

When Happy Hour

becomes Last Call—

Adam in drag

our royalty—

we buy her gin

for eternity

(an unseen deejay

scores the years

with pulsing music

of the spheres).

Now the queen has gone,

gone again

in search of love,

in search of sin.

It’s closing time.

You were not at fault.

I drain my glass

and lick the salt.

Randall Mann, “Last Call,” from Poetry (August 2004). Copyright © 2004 by Randall Mann.

Source: Poetry (August 2004).

Biography

Randall Mann’s poems are often set within the landscape of Florida or California. Influenced by Philip Larkin, Elizabeth Bishop, and Donald Justice, Mann’s poetry—at once vulnerable, unflinching, and brave in its ambivalence—explores themes of loss, attraction, brutality, and expectation. Of his preference for working in form, Mann says, “Form helps me approach more comfortably the personal, helps me harden argument.”

Mann is . . .

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